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You've got the look: Inside local homes that are icons of style

Peek inside some Southern Nevada homes that are icons of architectural style

Residential architecture — like any other art form — has its categories, from baroque to postmodern and beyond. A common lament about Las Vegas’ design landscape is its shallowness, but dig a little and you’ll find a few gems of specific genres — and in some cases, some examples that perfectly embody their spirit.

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Rustic hideaway

“I love the idea that once you walk away from your house, years and years from now, when nobody else wants it, it’s just going to erode away to a pile of dirt.”

That’s Barbara Luke talking about her eight-year-old straw-bale home in Blue Diamond. The construction technique, which humans have used in some form or another for centuries, employs bales of hay for structure and insulation. They’re bound together and covered with plaster, creating walls known for soft lines and their ability to keep cold, heat and sound out.

Straw-bale construction is also known for sustainability, because it relies primarily on a renewable resource, hay. With the help of architect David A. Heintz, Luke integrated many other eco-friendly features into her home’s design. Cabinets are made of compressed, formaldehyde-free straw fibers; doors are made of pickle wood, that is, from repurposed pickle barrels; tube lights (capped cylindrical tunnels through the ceiling to the sky) let in sunshine with minimal heat; a hot-water-on-demand system conserves energy; and a permeable concrete driveway filters water to the table below ground, instead of sending it away as runoff.

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Luke says friends love having parties at her place, partly because people find it so pretty, and partly because of the sound insulation. “It’s really peaceful inside.”

  

Minimalist mint

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The house’s box-like design is arranged around a central, indoor atrium looking out onto the backyard swimming pool and golf course beyond. The atrium feels like the heart of the house and, indeed, it distributes light and traffic flow through all four of its sides — to the outdoors, kitchen-dining area, living room and master bedroom. Sliding wood screens and windows open or cut off that flow depending on the activity, time of day or whim of the inhabitants.

Current residents Luke and Robin Vincent treasure the historic space they’ve called home since 2005. Luke Vincent, whose grandparents were friends and neighbors of the Millers, remembered trick-or-treating there as a kid, being fascinated by the koi that used to swim in a pond by the front door. Bored in their Southern Highlands McMansion, the Vincents couldn’t believe their eyes when, driving through the old neighborhood one day, they saw the Miller house for sale.

“From the moment I walked in, I could see I’d never been in a house like this before,” Robin Vincent says. Her husband adds, “I love everything about it.”

 

Modern experiment

Before Robert Fielden was known for his urban planning commentaries (on News 88.9 KNPR, among other outlets); before his firm, RAFI Architecture, had a portfolio crammed with some of Vegas’ best-known public buildings … way back in 1975, the young architect embarked on an experiment with his wife, Jane, and their two kids. They built their own home.

“Our house is the result of a research project that determined a unique custom home could be built using tract home techniques and materials for the same costs,” Fielden says.

Working only with a couple of framers, a plumber, an electrician and two tile setters, and doing most of the manual labor themselves, the family built a 2,300 square-foot house with a pool for around $75,000. Fielden says it wasn’t DIY by design; they simply couldn’t get busy contractors interested in the time-intensive project.

Back then, the location near Sahara Avenue and Jones Boulevard was on the edge of town. There wasn’t much to look at outside, so the design was inward-focused and centered around what started as a central atrium (eventually trimmed to a large indoor planter). The kids’ territory — with bedrooms and rec room — is on one end, and the grown-ups’ domain – with master bedroom and study — is on the other. The “line of demarcation,” as Fielden calls it, is the dining room and main entry in the middle.

The project also came at the end of the first Arab Oil Embargo, so it was designed to minimize energy costs — and to receive solar panels once the technology was fully established (they were added two years ago). Horizontal windows reflect light in while keeping heat out, and two-inch by six-inch stud framing allowed for thicker walls with more insulation than usual.

“There’s something special about living in a place you built yourself,” says Jane Fielden, Robert’s wife. “We did it all with our kids and friends."

 

Mid-mod dream home

You can’t talk design eras in Las Vegas without someone mentioning mid-century modern. Most classic examples of the 1950s and ’60s style, found in historic districts near downtown and Las Vegas National Golf Club, are either in disrepair or have been heavily modified.

Not Meghan Stoddard’s home. Having searched six months for a mid-mod home in original condition, Stoddard found this one in July 2008. She looked at it in the morning — and had it on hold by the afternoon.

It’s easy to see why. Hardly a thing has been altered on the house, designed by former owners Dino and Flora D’Alessio, since they had it built in 1963. Cabinets maintain their original finish and hardware. Gold-veined mirror walls (Dino D’Alessio owned a glass company) are absent of cracks. The floral-patterned tile in the kitchen is spotless. Every rock in the wraparound fireplace separating living room from den is intact. The built-in stereo in the den still pipes sound throughout the house (albeit from Stoddard’s jacked-in iPod). All the pink kitchen appliances but one (the dishwasher) work.

To top it off, Stoddard arrived stocked with period-appropriate furnishings, from Danish modern sofas and Jere-influenced wall hangings, to shag rugs under the dining set and ceramic dishes displayed in suspended glass cabinets.

“I’ve been a mid-century modern enthusiast for about eight to 10 years prior to moving in and slowly collected everything you see here,” Stoddard says.

She attributes her love of the era to her love of the area. Downtown is the cultural heart of Las Vegas, Stoddard says, something she didn’t realize as a young girl attending Bishop Gorman High School (when it was still located on Maryland Parkway and Oakey Boulevard).

“The enjoyment of living here is continuing to refine the environment," she says. “The pleasure is finding pieces that are in alignment with the design of the home.”

Desert Companion welcomed Heidi Kyser as staff writer in January 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to senior writer and producer, working for both DC and KNPR's State of Nevada. She produced KNPR’s first podcast, the Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winning Native Nevada, in 2020. The following year, she returned her focus full-time to Desert Companion, becoming Deputy Editor, which meant she was next in line to take over when longtime editor Andrew Kiraly left in July 2022. In 2024, Interim CEO Favian Perez promoted Heidi to managing editor, charged with integrating the Desert Companion and State of Nevada newsroom operations.